Core Developer Jeff Garzik Proposes 2MB Block Size Limit to Buy Time

Bitcoin Core developer Jeff Garzik has submitted a proposal to raise the block size limit from 1MB to 2MB. The proposal is intended to buy more time to reach a consensus on a more durable solution before the maximum amount of transactions on the Bitcoin network is reached.

As the debate on a possible raise of the block size limit has been raging for months – years even – without consensus on a durable solution within sight, Garzik has proposed to adapt a temporary solution. This new Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP), named BIP 102, holds that the Bitcoin block size limit be doubled on November 11 of this year. If adopted, it should take longer before the maximum capacity of transactions on the Bitcoin network is reached.

Garzik does emphasize, however, that he still hopes his own BIP 100 will eventually be adopted. BIP 100 proposes to install a dynamic block size limit, the size of which would determined by the mining community. On GitHub, Garzik wrote:

“This is an alternative to BIP 100, as a fallback if other consensus is not reached. It allows for limited experimentation to explore a size increase without going overboard. But it's not flexible, probably requires another hard fork, and still is an arbitrary [economic] policy not informed by the market, so inferior to BIP 100 [...] However, having a minimum-agreed backup plan is better than no plan at all.”

- Bitcoin Core developer Jeff Garzik

Raising the block-size limit has been a controversial issue for several years. Satoshi Nakamoto originally intended it to be a temporary measure in 2011 to prevent spam, but several developers and other prominent Bitcoiners now believe a limit on the block size may actually be much needed. They believe such a limit safeguards the decentralized nature of Bitcoin and provides a long-term incentive for miners to secure the network.

While it seems that most developers currently agree that the block size at its current limit of one megabyte is too small, consensus over how exactly to move forward is still lacking. This has recently even led to former Bitcoin Core lead developer Gavin Andresen to shift his efforts to Bitcoin XT in order to allow for bigger blocks through a controversial fork.

CoinTelegraph reached out to Jeff Garzik, but had received no response at time of publication.